Zeck,
Mesa Garden's wholesale offers are not limited to wholesale nurseries. Everybody can order those.
I cross my fingers.

Jordi

Thanks for your response Jordi. I'm glad to know that Steven & Linda Brack are so easy to work with in regards to their stock prices.

I know my mortality rate is going to be high since I've never grown succulents from seed. I've had pretty good success with other plants from seed, but they've all been a lot bigger and therefore easier to start and keep alive. I'll repost after I have some germination.

Thanks for your help. Fingers are crossed...

zeckron

this is a difficult time of year to grow mesemb seedlings because most of them do not grow well in summer heat - lithops and dinteranthus for example germinate well in heat, but tend to grow more successfully if it is an August sowing because the nights start to cool down as September approaches

If you can find a way to cool the seedlings down at night, maybe bring them into an air-conditioned room, you should have better results. 65-70 degree nights can be problematic. Metabolism shuts down and tiny seedlings are unable to cope. Oh well, I know you're anxious - been there, done that :-)

Maybe, don't sow all the seeds, wait until mid-August for the rest, and compare the results - that would be a great learning experience for the future.

Fenestraria will be particularly hard, it definitely prefers cooler temps, my plants stop growth completely by May. Lithops optica also does not handle heat well.

The mixed 500 pack, is that for experimentation? What will happen inevitably is that you will have difficulty ID-ing anything and will buy the named species anyway.

have fun!

Sow away. If you kill them all then you'll learn for next time :) If you boil a pot of 20 Lithops you would probably have boiled a whole tray of 500! And you will kill some, from a moment's inattention or just from not knowing whether that wrinkly blob needs more water or less (strangely enough it is nearly always more!).

Don't know where you are, don't know whether this is a good time to start. I mostly start in January so my seedlings can make the most of summer. I haven't had any seedlings go dormant even where the adult plant would. Even Conophytums just sheath over and pop straight out again. Everything needs watering frequently. Might not work so well in Alabama ;) Some people in hot climates deliberately sow in summer because the small seedlings grow so fast in hot moist conditions, I do it because there is no light in winter.

Probably all mesembs germinate very well in hot conditions. Even Fenestraria, I was surprised to find, come through in heat. This is English heat remember, but still 90+F in the greenhouse and they are growing on nicely in full sun.

All the others should be fine. I find Lithops optica far more tolerant of sun and heat than Fenestraria, and Lithops in general are well adapted to summer growing if they receive sufficient water. You will have to be careful about over-heating any of the tiny seedlings, they can boil very quickly.

Thanks for your responses Xerophyte and Shrubs.

You're probably right about the mixed pack. Eventually if I become moderately successful I'll be wanting to stick with specific species. I was interested in the mixed packets b/c they offer a wide array of multicolored lithops. Of all the lithops pics I've seen online, the multi-species trays have appealed to me the most. However, eventually I think I'll want to become more species-specific.

I first wanted to germinate the seeds this summer out of pure haste and impatience. But after reading S. Hammer's article that Xerophyte refered me to, I think it would actually be beneficial to start them in summer. Hammer showed that summer germination has proven better plants overall throughout their lifetime. Don't know if that would apply to me down in zone 7 as the climate here is very different from California. In fact, we're breaking records for overall LOW temperatures and heavy rainfall this year.

Usually by now we're into the high 90s and low 100s and we're about half way through our yearly drought. But this year, we've literally had rain EVERY SINGLE DAY for the past 2.5 months!!! The local spillway is about to flood over, which has happened only twice in my lifetime and temperatures have been a cool 85 to 95 everyday with a lot of cloud cover. Needless to say, if this once-in-a-decade weather doesn't clear off soon I'll be short on sunlight.

Thanks for the tip about bringing the seedlings in at night Xerophyte. You're right b/c it doesn't cool down very much at night here like it does in more arid climates. Usually only a drop of 7 to 12 degrees.

-Brandon.

Whoops! It's now official. The spillway has flooded over. The last time was in 1990 and it was a major media event. My family and I went down to the spillway and the Washington bridge that spans the lake (which was flooded and completely shut down to traffic though you could walk about 1/3 of the way down the bridge before the waves began lapping your feet). It was a surreal event that I'll never forget.

On a sad note though, the death toll has risen to 6 in a flooded community to the south of here...

An unusual year indeed.

mother nature has a way of letting us remember who the boss is

let us know how your seeds do, myself i've never had luck with mid-summer sowings, i think it has more to do with the warm nights than the hot days

shrubs: you've had success in summers, what kind of temps do you see at night?

Night temperatures above 70F are unusual here, classified as a heatwave. This year is completely bonkers, April was the sunniest and driest ever but it hasn't got any warmer since then. June was the wettest ever and its still raining. Nights are around 55F, good weather for mesembs if only the sun would come out.

Last July was our hottest month ever, night minimums were near 70F for much of the month, but even Conophytum seedlings were OK. I think seedlings are less likely to go dormant, they just have to grow or die. I don't mention day temperatures so much because most of my plants are grown in a greenhouse or cold frame and get quite a bit warmer than ambient. Actual air temperatures above 90F are extremely rare here, even 80F is unusual, but I still manage to boil seedlings from time to time.